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Topic: Im fairly confident the NSA (US Gov) Can 51% Any Coin At Any Time - page 3. (Read 6984 times)

hero member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 500
The NSA devices must be fine tuned to Double SHA256 calculations to have even remote chance doing 51% attack on Bitcoin. And this will be one-shot wonder weapon.

I really hope Im wrong and Im sure Im not the first person to consider this. Also, a 1 billion dollar market cap currency isnt a threat to the dollar.

But what about 10 billion? 100billion? 1 trillion? 10 trillion? When do they decide to pull the trigger, if they could?

Why cant they just write Bitcoin hashing code for their existing code breaking machines, fork the chain, invalidate all our coins, and then go back to hacking your Facebook to learn grandma's secret pie crust recipe?
legendary
Activity: 1470
Merit: 1029
Death to enemies!
The NSA devices must be fine tuned to Double SHA256 calculations to have even remote chance doing 51% attack on Bitcoin. And this will be one-shot wonder weapon.

To take away any coin at any time they must have guaranteed way to calculate private key from bitcoin address. Unlikely to happen.

As the USA government invests more time and research in waterboarding techniques than Bitcoin ASIC devices I will not worry about NSA attacking Bitcoin at all. The datacenter is for analyzing all Facebook and e-mail messages to calculate the exact time when You will put on suicide belt.
hero member
Activity: 526
Merit: 508
My other Avatar is also Scrooge McDuck
Cheaper ASICS distributed to more people?
That would be it.

Someday I'd expect something better than ASICs to be made too... We'll need to distribute that new tech out all again when that happens too.
legendary
Activity: 2324
Merit: 1125
So whats the solution here? Is there a solution?

Cheaper ASICS distributed to more people?

Patience (seems like a rare commodity amoung these parts)
legendary
Activity: 1890
Merit: 1000
Landscaping Bitcoin for India!
So whats the solution here? Is there a solution?

Cheaper ASICS distributed to more people?
kjj
legendary
Activity: 1302
Merit: 1025
Holy shit!  1021 operations per second!  You weren't kidding about the 1980 Casio watch!
legendary
Activity: 2324
Merit: 1125
They cannot. However, if they accept rather high cost at now visible gain the US is one of the powers still able to 51 Bitcoin.

It won't be that long though and the incentive isn't high enough. After that, Bitcoin is immortal.
hero member
Activity: 526
Merit: 508
My other Avatar is also Scrooge McDuck
Those are CPU cycles though...

Are they developing large amounts GPU or ASIC archetecture for SHA hasing?
hero member
Activity: 1036
Merit: 500
LINK TO WIRED ARTICLE: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Im dont have a degree in computer science and couldnt do any calculations even if we had real numbers about just how powerful the NSA's combined hashing power is, but given the scale and rate of development of massively parallel computing power the NSA has developed for code breaking, and given that they employ thousands of the smartest and best programmers and cryptographers in the world, and given that they have an unlimited budget, its seems obvious to me that the US Gov could have the NSA 51% attack any coin at any time. They have machines which make your Avalon look like a Casio watch from 1980.

Sorry for the downer, and hey at least Bitcoins have bounced back a little today. But to me this seems to be by far the biggest threat to Bitcoin and all the altcoins. Sorry if this has been posted or discussed here before, I did a quick search but didnt find much.

"the agency has not finished building at Oak Ridge, nor is it satisfied with breaking the petaflop barrier. Its next goal is to reach exaflop speed, one quintillion (1018) operations a second, and eventually zettaflop (1021) and yottaflop."
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